


After a Day

by GeekeryisAfoot



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, I am a giant multishipper and there are undertones of that, Not Really Character Death, but there's not really anything that's specifically romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 02:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7916731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeekeryisAfoot/pseuds/GeekeryisAfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day after Gansey died, Noah woke up.</p>
<p>My pre-The Raven King idea of how the series could end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After a Day

He woke slowly. It began with only base consciousness and blackness. He didn't know where he was, who he was, what he was. Was he anything at all? Memories and senses struggled to crawl back to him, fragment by fragment. Yes, he was a something. Dead. No, wait, that wasn't true anymore. He could feel his limbs. He could feel a physical body. He remembered Gansey making his request, his lifeless body on the cavern floor. Or were these memories of things that hadn't happened yet? He could feel his limbs tingling, an uncomfortable static, like sandpaper under his skin. Was he dying or coming back to life? The two felt indistinguishable. He didn't want to die again, didn't want to feel it for the millionth time. He didn't want to feel resurrection again. He wanted life but living again was pain, and his friend had paid the ultimate price for it. He didn't want that. Anything but that.

His mouth moved and his throat let out a noise, something between a shriek of pain and a howl of anguish and a gasp of surprise. His eyes flew open and saw the cold steel beams of the ceiling far above. His fists clenched and felt the thread of his blanket. His heart raced. His eyes watered. Or maybe they cried. His breath heaved, his lungs not getting enough air and getting too much at the same time. Had breathing always been this difficult? He remembered not having to think about it. He tried to not think about it.

The door slammed open and there was Blue, softly exclaiming “Noah!” Oh, that was the door to his room. He was in his room at Monmouth Manufacturing. She ran towards him and hopped on the bed to sit beside him. “What's wrong? Are you okay?” She grabbed and squeezed his hand, and even that small of a touch, of a sense, was grounding.

Blue looked awful. Her eyes were red and puffy, and there were small bright scraps on her arms, a few poking out of the bandaids that tried to cover them. She had changed her clothes at some point since they had returned from Cabeswater. Her dirty and not-purposely ripped clothes had been replaced by a simple too big t-shirt and yoga pants. Maura had probably brought them to her at some point. She had also washed her face- the tear tracks and most of the dirt were gone. Overall she just looked tired, like she wanted to sleep and maybe never wake up. The thought of loosing Blue to unending sleep too made his heart plunge. He pushed the thought away.

Without taking his hand away from Blue's, Noah slowly, carefully pushed himself up and leaned back against the headboard. Even moving slowly, it made his head spin. He tried to give Blue a reassuring smile, but he wasn't sure he succeeded. “I'm fine,” he said, voice stiff and cracking. He coughed to clear it. “Just waking up.” Not dieing or resurrecting. Just simple, ordinary, mundane waking up.

“You sure?” Blue prompted gently, her brows creased.

“Yeah. I haven't exactly done that in a while.” He looked Blue in the eyes and offered her another smile. It must have been better than the previous one, because she gave a hesitant one back. He glanced away and decided to continue, “It's just, well,” he took a deep breath. “It felt like when I would lose consciousness in Cabeswater. Like when I would fade in and out.” Almost inaudibly, he said “It made me forgot if I was alive or dead.”

Blue yanked Noah into a hug. The hug was clinging and too strong, but after a moment of surprise Noah clung back, resting his head on her shoulder. “Noah,” she whispered, “You're alive. You’re okay.” With one hand, she guided his head up and off her shoulder. She pressed a kiss to his forehead. “You're alive. Thank God, you’re alive.” Noah could feel tears forming in the corners of his eyes. He was alive. He was alive again and Gansey had paid the ultimate price for it then Adam had paid the ultimate price to get Gansey back and he didn't want that anything but that and it was his fault but he was alive again it had worked he was alive he was alive he was alive. 

When the tears spilled over, he put his head back on Blue's shoulder and pulled her closer. The crying started quietly and gently, but quickly grew sobbing and racked.

At some point Blue began crying too. Noah could feel her tears falling on his neck and he could hear the unevenness of her breath as she rubbed his back.

He didn't know how long they stayed like that, letting out all of the emotion of what had happened with Glendower and Cabeswater, letting out all of their mistakes and loss and uncertainty and worry. At some point, the tears stopped and both of their breathing evened out, but they stayed like that awhile longer, just breathing and knowing the other was there in their arms. Without opening his eyes, Noah quietly asked into Blue’s shoulder “Where- how is everyone else?”

Blue took in a deep breath. “After you… materialized and passed out, we took Adam and Gansey to the hospital. They're still there. They haven't woken up yet, but they're stable. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with them.” Quietly she added “They're like the sleeping dream creatures. Ronan was already working on something to keep dream creatures awake for his mom and Matthew, so it's just a matter of time until we figure something out.” She guided Noah’s head off her shoulder again so she could look him in the eyes. She still looked messy, injured and upset, like she had been shattered and was gluing herself back together, but her eyes were on fire. Noah couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. “We'll wake them up. We will,” she declared.

Noah believed her. He couldn’t not. If nothing else, Blue would intimidate everything back into the way it should be, laws of nature and magic be damned. And with Ronan backing her up? Not even the universe would be able to stand up to them. He nodded and made a noise of agreement. “I'm guessing Ronan’s at the hospital?” he asked.

“Yeah. We've been trying to switch who's at the hospital with them and who's here with you. We didn’t want any of you to wake up alone.”

Noah looked away from Blue's earnestness and quietly said “Thanks.” Blue hummed. “Can we go see them?”

“Of course. But I wasn't here very long before you woke up, so I haven't gotten to eat yet.” Her face lit up. “This’ll be your first meal! What do you want? Your choice.” Noah shrugged, and she nudged his shoulder. “Come on, you have to have some favorite food you're dieing to have again!”

Noah cracked a smile at her pun, and Blue smiled back at him. She nudged him again and said “Come on, something has to sound good! Pizza, subs, Chinese food… what other restaurants deliver? Or we could stop for tacos or burgers on the way there.”

Noah shook his head. “No, that's okay. Chinese sounds good.”

“Great!” Blue disentangled herself from Noah and stood up. “Then I'll order while you go shower.”

A shower. That sounded amazing. How long had it been since he had taken a shower?

 

A shower, Chinese food delivery, and short drive later, Blue and Noah finally found themselves at the hospital. “I come bearing potstickers and Noah,” Blue announced as she entered Gansey and Adam’s room. Pausing at the door, Noah took a deep breath and braced himself before stepping through. He knew he would never be able to forget the image of his friends essentially dead or the guilt that that image would always carry, but he couldn't let himself not look. He owned them so, so much more than that. He stepped into the room.

Adam and Gansey looked untroubled and uninjured lying in their hospital beds, limbs artfully arranged by a nurse. Peaceful wasn't the right word.  _ Void _ was. Noah had seen Adam sleep a few times before and had seen Gansey sleep quite a few times. Here, like this, they looked  _ wrong _ . They didn't look pained, but they also looked devoid of anything that could be called life. No movements, no emotions, no dreams or thoughts going on behind their closed eyelids: they were just there, breathing, machines beeping out their steady heartbeats. It was Noah’s fault they were there. Gansey had given his life to bring back Noah’s, and Adam had given his to bring back Gansey’s. Somehow in magical forest and dead Welsh king wish math that equaled one alive Noah and two practically dead friends.

Behind the beds, Ronan slumped in the only chair in the room, glaring at either Gansey, Adam, the machines they were hooked up to, the wall, the world at large, or all of the above. His eyes immediately jumped to Noah. Before Noah could think to say anything, Ronan was out of the chair, eyes thundering, stomping towards him, and pulling him into a smothering hug. Ronan’s shoulder pressed into Noah neck making it hard to breath, but he didn't really mind. It reminded him that he was breathing. He hugged Ronan back and tried not to cry for the second time that day.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this back before The Raven King came out, and it was basically my idea of how the series could end with everyone alive and happy. Eventually. I originally planned for this to be a series of sorts, and I started a few other fics that dealt with the weird details involved with coming back to life, everyone finding happiness, and actually getting into a poly relationship, but those are nowhere close to done, and with the actual ending of the series I don't really have any motivation to finish them. But I really liked how this one turned out so I figured I could publish it anyway. For my first work, I'm really proud of how it turned out.


End file.
